The FacebookIs10 Movie and Your Audience

I’m pleased to welcome Public Words writer Sarah Morgan as a guest blogger for this posting.

How many Facebook movies have you watched this week?

They’re probably all over your news feed–the delightful LookBack videos your friends are all sharing with the hashtag #FacebookIs10. And they’re a great example of how to make your message shareable by making it all about your audience.

As a speaker or an author, you’re the face of your brand. This can be daunting at times. Especially when you first start out, you may find yourself thinking, Why would anyone want to listen to me?

The answer is, they won’t. Your audience doesn’t know you. They don’t want to hear about you and how revolutionary your idea is.

What they want is to hear about themselves. They want to hear about the problems they’re facing, and how your idea is going to change their lives.

If Facebook had produced a glossy movie about what the past 10 years have been like for the staff of Facebook, would you and your friends have shared it? Probably not.

Facebook made its audience the star of the LookBack video. And now it’s all over your newsfeed. The message that Facebook is a great place to share the stories of our lives is still there, but it’s there in a way that makes it feel personal, and that makes it shareable.

How can you make your audience the hero of your story? How can you make your message feel personal to them?

3 Comments

How do I make my audience the hero of my story? I connect them to the story and make sure the message speaks to them!
I was amazed at the speed in which people were sending their Facebook movies to friends. I was quick off the mark to send mine out. Did I watch everyone’s? No. Did all my friends watch mine? Probably not. What I do know is from the ones who did, those who featured in my movie felt very included and loved and told me so! I think that says it all! The more we speak to our audience and make it about them the better our message gets across; that’s assuming there is a message for listeners to hear! But that’s another story for another time!

Another great lesson from the Facebook movies: they were just one-minute long! How many of us, if we had to make a video about ourselves, would have the discipline and perspective to sum it all up in just a minute?

So for speakers, can you stand outside of yourself and look at your material objectively and decide what really does and does not need to be there? How can you make it shorter? If the audience is truly the hero of your story, you would never waste your hero’s time, right?

Meta

Public Words helps you bring your ideas to life. We help you tell your story, write and publish your book, create your brand, develop your community and deliver your speech with charisma. We’re family-run, passionate, and crazy about our clients.